During the past couple of decades, there has been increasing emphasis placed upon ease of disposability of consumer goods after the goods have performed their intended purpose. Examples of these consumer goods are facial or toilet tissue or containers which are made out of layered or corrugated paper. Other products such as sanitary napkins containing cellulosic material have been designed to be flushable but concessions have been made regarding adhesives. U.S. Pat. No. 3,665,923 discloses a flushable sanitary napkin in which the cover is dispersible and the absorbent component dissolvable. As is stated therein, however, the portion of the cover having garment attachment adhesive is neither dissolvable or dispersible. Clearly then, the segments of the cover which have adhesive applied to them will not easily disperse in a toilet.
Attempts have been made in the past to utilize water dispersible adhesives which are heat settable or heat activatable. These adhesives must provide a balance of solubility or dispersibility with adhesivity or cohesiveness. Since heat activatable adhesives tend to be organic, thermoplastic, polymeric and non-ionic, a careful balancing of properties and components is necessary. U.S. Pat. No. 3,891,584 describes a water dispersible hot melt adhesive containing 75-95 parts of a graft copolymer comprising a vinyl monomer and a polyalkylene oxide polymer in combination with a tackifying resin. While this adhesive composition does, apparently, disperse, it is exceedingly low in adhesivity for certain substrates such as nylon. This characteristic would inhibit its use for certain purposes such as for a flushable sanitary napkin garment attachment adhesive.